“For centuries, the tradition was passed down from one man to another. But sisters Irfana and Rihana Yousuf began to play with support from their father, Mohammad Yousuf. A musician himself, he sometimes had to sell household items to afford the costly instruments so they could keep their dream alive – and his. … In Sufism, a form of Islamic mysticism, this music is food for the soul. Its origins in Kashmir trace back to the 15th century. But today, with few traditional artists left in the valley, these players represent a ray of hope for Sufi music’s revival.” – Christian Science Monitor
Novels Can Be Any Length. So Why Are They This Long?
“The novel is an extremely flexible form. It can come out in countless shapes, include infinite content, and end up almost any length. Let’s call the lower limit of a novel 40,000 words. Long novels like Infinite Jest and The Stand are more than 10 times that length, and that’s not even getting into series or In Search of Lost Times type works that are published in dozens or more volumes. So why are most novels published in a relatively narrow range of 60k to 120k words?” – Countercraft
Jazz Musicians Remember Chick Corea
He left behind “thousands of audio and video recordings; the countless notes scrawled on countless piles of music manuscript paper; and, of course, the memories of family, friends, and fans.” Just about everyone who plays jazz today owes something to Corea, whether they know it or not (and most do). – Jazz Times
Size Matters: Of Novels And Novellas And Their Fluctuating Lengths
Novels started out long in the 18th and 19th centuries, got shorter in the early 20th century, and really started bulking up (especially genre fiction) after 1991. What’s more, readers love novellas all over Latin America and in South Korea and they appear regularly in continental Europe, but you almost never see new novellas published in the Anglosphere. Why? The writer’s muse notwithstanding, it’s about money. Lincoln Michel explains. (Oh, and what was the key factor in genre novels getting longer in the ’90s? Supermarkets.) – Counter Craft
How To Fight Online Disinformation
“The trend of people celebrating and posting photos of themselves or loved ones receiving the vaccine has been far more effective than any attempt to disprove a baseless claim about Bill Gates or 5G mobile technology. In the attention economy that governs tech platforms, drowning out is a better strategy than rebuttal.” – Big Think
Historian Pinpoints The Worst Year In Human History
The year was terrible due to cataclysmic eruptions that blocked out the sun and the spread of the plague. It ushered in the coldest decade in thousands of years and started a century of economic devastation. – Big Think
Brexit Is Killing UK Musicians’ Gigs
The stress and cost of work visa requirements, new taxes, and prohibitively high touring costs have upended the careers of scores of British musicians, to the extent that many are considering moving to Europe. “There will be a new hub of freelancers in an EU country instead.” – Bloomberg
To Understand The Human Brain, We’re Going To Have To Get Inside It. Cue The Ethical Debate
As the risks reduce and the research possibilities open up, then it is easy to imagine how we could slip, unnoticing, from thinking the recording of neurons in a healthy human brain is unimaginable to thinking it is something that needs doing to further our understanding of ourselves. Sooner than we thought, we will face a deep ethical challenge, one that will force us to decide: How badly do we want to understand the human brain? – Slate
Ballet In America Is Having A COVID-Induced Baby Boom
“A career in ballet lasts only as long as a dancer’s body does. If they’re lucky, dancers can perform into their 30s — or in rare cases, into their 40s. When every season counts, taking time off to get pregnant, give birth, and recover is daunting. … [But since] they were already losing valuable career time to COVID-19. Why not have a baby now and avoid another major career disruption?” – Glamour
Why Is Howard University Closing Its Classics Department?
Amid a move for educational “prioritization,” Howard University is dissolving its classics department. Tenured faculty will be dispersed to other departments, where their courses can still be taught. But the university has sent a disturbing message by abolishing the department. – Washington Post
Class Struggle, Artists, And Changing The World
Struggle without class analysis results in the many empty institutional statements and surface-level concessions we’ve seen across the United States this past year. Class politics is less concerned with pushing for that first Black or female artistic director as it is in asking why we have to constantly fight so hard to include those people in the first place. – Howlround
NFTs — Not Just For Art Anymore
“What we are primarily focusing on at Time is how NFTs relate to subscriptions, memberships, and access to unique experiences, which would allow us to drive recurring revenue streams, rather than one-time payments. A larger, longer-term opportunity is using blockchain technology alongside these tokens.” – Vanity Fair
Lesson: Streaming Theatre Works When It’s Designed For It
The problem that companies like ACT had been having, said Randy Taradash, was that they weren’t just having to juggle new technology, but also new tech partners whose business models didn’t necessarily fit the way nonprofit regional theatres function. The difference with the National Theatre Network, he noted, is that it’s not a tech company or ticket seller coming in to figure out theatre; it is run by theatre people who are aiming to help regional theatres take the next steps into the future. – American Theatre
Make Room For Theatre Visionaries
Lacking in visionary leaders? Absolutely not. They’re just blocked from the table by their status as a young person, or as a queer person, or as an artist of color. – Theatre Mania
The Rise And Fall Of ‘Florida Man’, Once The Internet’s Favorite Laughingstock
Tyler Gillespie, author of The Thing About Florida: Exploring a Misunderstood State and Florida Man: Poems, traces the course of this icon of the weird from the old website Fark.com (“We Don’t Make the News. We Mock It”), looks at the long history of Florida Man/Woman-type stories (e.g., “Edna May’s recipe for being a successful wife to the ultra-rich” from the Alachua Booster in 1912), explains the reason Florida Man could become famous (the state’s Sunshine Law), and confidently predicts which state will be the next Florida. – Literary Hub
Two Senior Staffers Quit MOCA In L.A. Over ‘Hostile Environment’ And Resistance To Diversity Plan
One of the departing execs, the director of human resources, left over conflict with his boss, the deputy director, and alleged retaliation which he said constituted a “hostile environment.” The other was senior curator Mia Locks, who joined the museum in 2019 in part to oversee its new IDEA Initiative (for inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility); in her resignation email, she said that “MOCA’s leadership is not yet ready to fully embrace IDEA.” – Los Angeles Times
The Cutting Edge In Breathing Therapy For Recovering COVID Patients? Opera Singing
Last June, English National Opera and a branch of the NHS launched ENO Breathe, a program that offers what are basically online voice lessons adapted for patients suffering from ongoing shortness of breath weeks and months after (partially) recovering from COVID. The program’s administrators report that more than 90% of participants have experienced both improvements in breathing and reduction of anxiety. – Smithsonian Magazine
Creating A Practice Of Public Philosophy
Public philosophy isn’t simply popularizing philosophical ideas (though it typically involves that). It is more often a matter of instigating a kind of thinking, a kind of thinking that can be disorienting, heretical, and frustrating. – 3 Quarks Daily
Does A “Big” Book Equal A Necessary Book?
“In the marketplace of books, it can be hard to find that next, necessary book. I keep a list of what to read next – lots of people do. But what is offered to me? Mostly big books from big names, published in editions up into the millions of copies (Michelle Obama’s initial print run for Becoming was 3.4 million, increased to 4.3 million because of demand). The big publishers want sure-fire bestsellers. . . but are these really the necessary books?” – 3 Quarks Daily
A Soldier’s Tale for Today
The pertinence of A Soldier’s Tale today is self-evident. It is a COVID diversion: compact, flexible, rejecting Romantic symphonic upholstery in favor of a dry, caustic sonority conducive to bitter entertainments, light-hearted yet not evasive. – Joseph Horowitz
The Dueling Bob Dylan Bios By Authors Who Hate Each Other
“It’s not really polite to tell other writers they’re bad writers, because they tend to fling it back to you. In response, I would say he’s a clunky, self-indulgent writer … His books are all very long and baggy. They’re about his interpretation of Dylan songs … and it’s incredibly boring.” – The Guardian
Would It Kill Spotify To Pay Musicians A Penny Per Stream?
And would a penny per stream be a little more fair? After all, “Spotify increasing royalties to a penny per stream would send a clear, graspable message to its subscribers that it values the artists who serve as the foundation of the company. It would also bring Spotify in line with competitors Apple, Amazon Music and Tidal.” – Los Angeles Times
The Tricks To Playing Drunk
It’s not the 1960s anymore (not by a long shot), so actors usually don’t play drunk by getting drunk. Instead, consider Aubrey Plaza’s technique for her movie Black Bear. “Acting drunk when you’re sober is no easier than acting sober when you’re drunk. To get into the right frame of unsteadiness, Plaza would spin round until almost throwing up just before the scene. That’s commitment.” – The Guardian (UK)
Product Placement, AKA Advertising, Is Coming To Classic Films
This doesn’t seem like a great idea, but then again, who asked the audience? “Items can be digitally added to almost any movie or TV show. For example, advertisers could put new labels on the champagne bottles in Rick’s Cafe in Casablanca, add different background neon advertising signs to Ocean’s 11, or get Charlie Chaplin to promote a fizzy drink.” – BBC